HCV Epidemiology & Mortality

End Hep C SF, a consortium of public health workers, medical providers, advocates, and people living with hepatitis C, has released the first-ever estimate of the number of people thought to be living with active hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection in San Francisco.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released new data last week showing that the number of new hepatitis C virus (HCV) infections reported to the agency nearly tripled between 2010 and 2015. A related study saw a rising rate of hepatitis C among pregnant women -- increasing the likelihood of mother-to-child HCV transmission -- while another showed that many states are not doing all they could to reduce new infections.

A little more than a year after the Netherlands instituted a policy allowing unrestricted access to direct-acting antivirals (DAAs) for the hepatitis C treatment, researchers have already seen a dramatic decline in acute HCV infections among one at-risk population, HIV-positive men who have sex with men, according to findings reported at the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections this week in Seattle.

An estimated 325 million people worldwide are living with chronic hepatitis B or hepatitis C, according to a new report from the World Health Organization (WHO) released at the EASL International Liver Congress last month in Amsterdam.Most lack access to testing and treatment, and therefore are at risk for liver disease progression, liver cancer, and death.

Hepatitis B and C have become leading causes of death and disability worldwide, as other major communicable diseases such as HIV/AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis (TB) have come under better control, according to an analysis published in the July 8 online edition of The Lancet.